24 August 2010

"...going back to my old school."

I never did buy into the whole "shit happens when Mercury is in retrograde" thing, but today I came close. 

Lots of stuff actually did go wrong today, but it started off badly from the jump.  I get up, get out of the house, and make it to my morning writing spot with a good hour and fifteen minutes before work.  And my beloved netbook, which worked fine before I left my place, refused to turn on.  I heard the hard drive doing... something... whenever I hit the power button.  But it just refused to boot up.

This is the point where, in the past, I would've gone off in a rage.  Actually, I'm not sure why I didn't.  Still, I had a few options.  I had a similar problem sometime last year, which I fixed by flashing the BIOS.  I had a "rescue USB" drive with me, but I'd forgotten how to use it.  I could've gone back home, gotten online, and looked up how to fix what I thought was the problem--which would've eaten up my writing time--or, I could just take it back old school with an ancient method known as "longhand."  And, that's what I did.


Because, that's how writers do it.  With a red-eye and no fucking excuses.

19 August 2010

They're Coming to Get You, Barbara

Check out Robert "Nix" Nixon's cover art for the upcoming anthology Rigor Amortis.  I'm not ashamed to say that I did stare at it for several minutes before typing up this entry.

What's in store for you, the reader?
Maybe a tender love story is your thing, a husband doting on his wife’s rotting corpse. Or perhaps a forbidden encounter in a secret cafĂ©, serving up the latest in delectable zombie cuisine, or some dirty, dirty dancing in the old-time honky-tonk. Voodoo sex-slaves and vending machine body-parts? You’ll find those here, too.

Whatever your flavor, these short tales of undead Romance, Revenge, Risk, and Raunch will leave you shambling, moaning, and clawing for more.

Rigor Amortis, with my story "Sublimation," drops on October 1st.  Order yourself a copy.  You know you want to.

18 August 2010

"14 karat love, you are my jewel of the Nile"

If I didn't feel guilty enough for not taking the time to spotlight more of my favorite writer-friends, like Regan Leigh, I do now.  Especially since she threw the spotlight on me in her eighth installment of Writer Love!

Her kind words seriously made me blush...
Don is a great friend and very talented, but his dedication is just as impressive. I can’t tell you how many times I see him (via Twitter) writing in his spare minutes, no matter where he might be.

The best part is, she dedicated a song to me.  The other night, for some god unknown reason, I had Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam with Full Force on the brain.  And Regan made sure they stayed there, with this dope, funky fresh tune from back in the day.



You have my eternal gratitude, Regan. But, it begs the question--were you even alive when this song came out? :D

17 August 2010

"For the love of a(n Elder) God, you say, Not a letter from an occupant"

It's one thing to take my roller derby nom-de-guerre from H.P. Lovecraft without having read any Lovecraft.  But trying to write a story based on the mythos without doing so could end up making me look like an asshat. 

The story I'm writing concerns a tidbit I happened to read about The Deep Ones.  No, I'm not gonna tell you which tidbit--that'd spoil the story.

15 August 2010

"Their features are changing. Their bodies dissolve, and I am alone"

My current short story in progress is headed (Elder Gods willing) to Cthulhurotica - An Anthology of Lovecraftian Lust, which will be published by Dagan Books.  I worked out its soundtrack, just like I do for most of my stories, to help me figure out which emotional pulses I want to hit in different scenes.

Take a listen:
  • The New Pornographers, "Failsafe"
  • Eleni Mandell, "Bigger Burn"
  • Manic Street Preachers, "Your Love Alone Is Not Enough"
  • Arcade Fire, "Ocean of Noise"
  • Air, "The Word 'Hurricane'"
  • Cassandra Wilson, "A Little Warm Death"
  • The Blue Nile, "Body and Soul"
  • Genesis, "Domino, Pt. 1 - In the Glow of the Night/Pt. 2 - The Last Domino"
The lyrics to "Domino" are about as Lovecraftian as I've ever heard Phil Collins sing, which should be proof that anyone who thought Genesis just plain sucked post-Peter Gabriel wasn't paying enough attention.

11 August 2010

"Signed, sealed, delivered/ I'm yours"

Thanks to the hard work of editors Jaym Gates and Erika Holt, it's official: My flash fiction piece "Sublimation" will appear in the anthology Rigor Amortis, to be published by Absolute XPress!!